Will the Retirement age of central government employees go up from 60 to 62?

Will the Retirement age of central government employees go up from 60 to 62?

As we heard every time before the budget session of parliament, this time also a rumor about raising the retirement age of central government employees from 60 to 62 is spreading here and there among the central government employees. May be the officers at the verge of retirement be happy about this rumor. Otherwise there is no reason to be happy about this rumor.. As India is having 51% of people below the age of 25 years , it is not a good news to millions of jobless people. Sources close to the trade union movements and Federations told that there is no such proposal with the government since none of the workers federations have demanded it.

In 2009, The Manmohan Singh government was serious in weighing the pros and cons of increasing the retirement age for government employees from 60 to 62 years.That time it was believed that the finance ministry had prepared a detailed note on the issue and sent it to the prime minister’s office (PMO) But the government shelved the idea, largely because of fears that a higher retirement age would adversely impact employment generation and create resentment in the bureaucracy because of blocked promotional avenues. At that time, it was the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) that was asked by the PMO to study the issue and prepare a report.

The BJP led National Democratic Alliance government had raised the retirement age from 58 to 60, in 1998, a move that benefitted 90,000 government servants and 50,000 defence personnel. At the time, the logic was: the retirement of 140,000 employees would have cost Rs 5,200 crore whereas paying salaries cost only Rs 1,493 crore.

Incase if the decision is finally taken, it will only be the third time the government will have raised the retirement age. Jawaharlal Nehru was the first prime minister to have increased the age of superannuation from 55 to 58 following the 1962 war with China. The Atal Bihari Vajpayee government did it a second time in 1998.